42 MAC 
nual labour, as to the power of their machines. The 
Spaniards, when they made the conqueft of Peru, were 
ftruck with aftoniffiment to find the natives, whom they 
confidered as favages and barbarians, railing enormous 
mafifes of (tone of ten feet fquare, for building walls and 
other purpcfes, without the afiiftance of any instruments 
but thofe which nature had fupplied them with; unac¬ 
quainted with any other fcaffolding but that of banks of 
earth raifed againft their buildings, they contrived by 
ltrength of hand to raife thefe mafi'y loads up the inclined 
planes thus formed; and many of the Druidical remains 
in this country were probably erefted in afimilar manner. 
The ancient Greek and Roman architects, however, were 
no doubt acquainted with, and employed, very powerful 
machines in the conftruftion of their noble edifices, with 
the nature of which we have not been informed ; even Vi¬ 
truvius, who writes exprefsly on the fubjeft, has left us 
nothing that can throw any light on the conftruftion 
of thel'e engines, yet that they were in pofieflion of im- 
menfe and wonderful machinery, appears in the molt con¬ 
vincing manner to any perfon who refledts on the magni¬ 
ficent ftrudtures which they eredted, and which excite to 
this day the wonder and admiration of the world, not only 
on account of their grandeur and incomparable elegance, 
but alfo on account of the mechanical knowledge that 
leems indifpenfably neceflary for their eredtion. 
MACHINERY, J. Enginery; complicated workman- 
fliip; fehf-moved engines. The part which deities, an¬ 
gels, or demons, adt in a poem. 
The machinery of the drama is made up of gods, an¬ 
gels, gholts, &c. They are fo called from the machines, 
or contrivances by which they are reprefented upon the 
ftage, and afterwards removed again. Heqce the ufe of 
the word machine has alfo pafled into the epic poem ; 
though the reafon of its name be there wanting. It de¬ 
notes, in both cafes, the intervention or mini If i y of fome 
divinity; but, as the occafion of machines in the one and 
the other is fomewhat different, the rules and laws of ma¬ 
naging them are different likewife. The ancient dramatic 
poets never brought any machine on the ftage, but where 
there was an abfolute neceffity for the prefence of a god ; 
and they were generally laughed at for fuftering them- 
felves to be reduced to fuch a neceliity. Accordingly, 
Ariftotle lays it down as an exprefs law, that the unra¬ 
velling of the piece fhould arife from the fable itfelf, and 
not from any foreign machine, as in the Medea. Horace 
is fomewhat lefs levere, and contents himfelf with faying, 
that the gods fhould never appear, unlefs where the nodus, 
or knot, is worthy of their prefence : 
Nec deus interfit , niji dignus vindice nodus 
Incident. 
Never prefume to make a god appear 
But for a bufinefs worthy of a god. 
But it is quite otherwife with the epopea; in that there 
muff be machines every where, and in every part. Ho¬ 
mer and Virgil do nothing without them. Petronius, 
with his ufual fire, maintains, that the poet fhould deal 
more with the gods than with men ; that he fhould every¬ 
where leave marks of his prophetic raptures, and of the 
divine fury that poflefles him ; that his thoughts fhould 
be all full of fables, that is, of allegories and figures ; in 
fine, he will have a poem diftinguilhed from a hiftory in 
all its parts, not fo much by the verfes as by that poetical 
fury which exprelfes itfelf wholly by allegories, and does 
nothing but by machines, or the miniltry of the gods. 
A poet, therefore, muff leave it to the hiftorian to fay, 
that a fleet was difperfed by a ftorm, and driven to fo¬ 
reign (bores; and muff himfelf fay, with Virgil, that Juno 
went to leek iEolus ; and that this god, at her requeft, 
turned the winds loofe againft the Trojans: he muff leave 
the hiftorian to write, that a young prince behaved with 
a great deal of prudence and diferetion on all occafions; 
and muff fay, with Homer, that Minerva led him by the 
hand in all his enterprifes ; let an hiftorian fay, that Aga¬ 
memnon, quarrelling with Achilles, hath a mind to fliow 
MAC 
him, though miftakeniy, that he can take Troy without 
his afiiftance ; the poet mult fay, that Thetis, piqued at 
the affront her fon had received, flies up to heaven, there 
to demand vengeance of Jupiter; and that this god, to 
fatisfy her, fends the god Somnvs, or Sleep, to Agamem¬ 
non, to deceive him, and make him believe that he (hall 
take Troy that day. It is thus that the epic poets ufed 
machines in all parts of their works ; in the Iliad, Odyfley, 
and Aineid, the propolition mentions them ; the invoca¬ 
tion is addrefled to them; and the narration is full of them: 
they are the caufes of actions ; they make the knots, and 
at laftthey unravel them. This lafl circumftance is what 
Ariftotle forbids in the drama; but it is what Horner and 
Virgil have both praftifed in the epopea. Thus Minerva 
fights for Ulyfles againft Penelope’s lovers; helps him to 
deftroy them ; and, the next day, herfelf makes the peace 
between Ulyfles and the Ithacans; which clofes the Odyf- 
fey. The ufe of machines in the epic poem is, on fome 
accounts, entirely oppofite to what Horace preferibes for 
the theatre. In tragedy, that critic will never have them 
ufed without an abfolute neceffity; whereas, in the epo¬ 
pea, they fhould never be ufed but where they may be 
as well let alone, and where the aftion appears as if it 
did not neceflarily require them. How many gods and 
machines does Virgil implore to raife the ftorm that drives 
Aineas into Carthage; which yet might eafily have hap¬ 
pened in the ordinary courfe of nature. 
In Milton’s Paradife Loft, moll of the aftors are fuper- 
natural perfonages; and in Voltaire’s Henriade, the poet 
has made excellent ufe of St. Louis. Machines in the epic 
poem, therefore, are not contrivances of the poet, to re¬ 
cover himfelf after he has made a falfe ftep, nor to folve 
any difficulty peculiar to fome part of the poem ; but it 
is the prefence of a divinity, and fome fupernatural and 
extraordinary aftion, which the poet inferts in molt of the 
incidents of his work, to render it more majeftic and ad¬ 
mirable, and to train up his readers to piety and virtue. 
This mixture fhould always be fo managed, as that the 
machines may be retrenched without retrenching any¬ 
thing from the action. As to the manner in which the 
machines are to aft; it may be obferved, that, in the old 
mythology, there are gods both good, bad, and indiffer¬ 
ent ; and that our paffions may be converted into fo many 
allegorical divinities ; fo that every thing, both good and 
bad, in a poem, may be attributed to thefe machines, and 
may be tranfafted by them. They do not, however, al¬ 
ways aft in the fame manner; fometimes they aft without 
appearing, and by Ample infpirations, which have nothing 
in them extraordinary or miraculous; as when we fay, the 
devil luggefted fuch a thought, &c. The fecond manner 
of ailing is entirely miraculous; as when a divinity pre- 
fents itfelf vilibly before men, fo as to be known by them - 
or when they dilguife themfelves under fome human form 
without difeovering themfelves. The third manner par¬ 
takes of each of the two, and confifts in oracles, dreams 
and extraordinary infpirations ; all which Boffu calls demi- 
machines. All thefe matters, however, ought to be fo ma¬ 
naged as to carry a verifimilitude; and, though veri- 
fimilitude be of a vail extent in machines, as being 
founded on the divine power, yet it has its bounds. See 
farther, on the importance and ufe of machinery, the ar¬ 
ticle Poetry. 
MA'CHINIST, f. A conftruftor of engines or ma¬ 
chines. A contriver of embellishment for dramatic fpec- 
tacles. In the early operas of Italy, during the 17th cen¬ 
tury, it feldom happened that the names of the poets, 
compofers, or fingers, were recorded in printed copies of 
tiie words; though that of the machinijt was feldom omit¬ 
ted ; and much greater care feems to have been taken to 
amufe the eye than the ear or intelieft of thofe who at¬ 
tended thefe lpettacles. In 1675, we are told, in the Thea. 
tricai Annals of Venice, that a mufical drama, called La 
Divifione del Mondo, written by Giulio Cefare Corradi, 
and fet by Legrenzi, excited univerfal admiration, by the 
ftupendous machinery and decorations with which it was 
exhibited, And in 16S0, the opera of Berenice, fet by 
Domenico 
